#Notes from Socotra, Yemen: Misogyny and War

In the Middle East context, the conflict in Yemen has forced an estimated 4.6 million to flee, according to United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency figures. In the first two weeks of 2022 alone, 3,468 people (578 families) were displaced, the UN agency said in a recent report. Internally displaced Yemenis face a plethora of challenges and are more at risk of famine and preventable diseases. The UN has warned that more than five million people are on the brink of famine while 50,000 others were living in famine-like conditions. Malnutrition among children and pregnant or breastfeeding women is another pressing concern, warning that the two groups were particular victims of malnutrition (Aljazeera.com, 2022).

The UN recently brokered a two-month ceasefire between Houthis in the North and factors in the South, seeking independence. The terms of the truce will facilitate the entry of 18 fuel ships into the ports of Hodeida, the return of electricity and two commercial flights to resume passage to and from Sanaa’s airport (Wintour, 2022). There are high hopes that the ceasefire will lead to peace talks and address some of the underlying economic problems prolonging the conflict. But seven years of war has had a devastating impact on Yemen’s people, setting the country’s human development back by decades and robbing a generation of their future (McCormack, 2021).

In this conflict, as in others, suffering occurs along profoundly gendered lines. Yemen is considered one of the most difficult places on earth to be female. It has ranked last in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index for 13 consecutive years (UN Women, 2022). Women have suffered disproportionately due to entrenched gender inequality rooted in a patriarchal society with rigid gender roles. Negative gender stereotypes and patriarchal attitudes, a discriminatory legal system, and economic inequality compound women’s limited access to food, water, sanitation and health care services (Amnesty International, 2019). It is challenging for women who are unchaperoned to leave the house, let alone travel, and they face violence and intimidation at checkpoints. This makes it more difficult for women to flee conflict zones and the domestic sphere, during war and peace, is subject to women’s oppression. Meanwhile the island of Socotra, Yemen, has become a relative haven for a small number of Yemeni families and some single women, from the mainland. In this commentary, it is the lives of women in Socotra that I turn my attention to, via my own brief experiences as a woman academic visiting the island. These reflections consider how patriarchal places are the sites of gender struggle, violence and suffering.

Socotra, Yemen, 2022

Home to frankincense, myrrh trees and rare birds, Socotra was declared a UNESCO heritage reserve in 2008 due to a startling biodiversity. Lying in the Indian Ocean, approximately 240 km east of the Horn of Africa, 480 km south of the Arabian Coast, near to Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, each of which have cultural influences on the peninsula. Its name is traced to the Sanskrit dvipa-sakhadara, “island abode of bliss” but it also has many other translations and associations (Salim, 2021). Socotra was under the rule of Mahra sultans of southeastern Yemen until this was interrupted by Portuguese occupation between 1507 and 1511. In 1834 the British tried and failed to purchase the island and then in the 1880s, the sultan accepted British protection for the entire sultanate until Yemen returned. In 1999, a small airport was built and in that year 140 travellers visited (Burdick, 2007). Flights were suspended in March 2015, due to Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and resumed in late 2018. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) took over the airport in 2018 but returned control to Yemeni officials in the same year (Baser, 2020). The annual figure of visitors to Socotra now exceeds 3,000 and the island has three gas stations, some flush toilets and four small hotels. The UAE replaced the Yemini internet and telecom networks in Socotra in 2020, as part of soft power efforts to influence culture and identity (Fenton-Harvey, 2020).

Socotrian culture is shifting and complex rather than primitive and stagnant. One such change, in addition to significant upgrading of Socotra’s infrastructure, visible build-up of rubbish and plastic waste, is the opening of The Socotra Archipelago University in September 2021. It is funded by the UAE’s Khalifa Foundation and offers bachelor’s degrees, in Economics, Computer Science, Integrated Systems and English Language, to male and female Socotrian students. Female lectures working there from Aden, like their male counterparts, have PhDs in computer science, economics and chemical engineering.

As part of a research project, funded by the UAE Khalifa Foundation, since working as an assistant professor at a university in Dubai I had the opportunity to visit Socotra to carry out research. I met with women professors from Yemen’s mainland, coming from Aden and Sanaa. Although happy to have fled the conflict zone, on the island they are still second-class citizens to a certain degree and considered outsiders or “Gadeh min Renhem” (Salim, 2021 p.55) since they arrived in Socotra by land or sea. Some Yemenis have left their children and extended families behind but hope that they now, during the ceasefire, they will be able to see them.

Women’s empowerment in the Gulf Arab context, in relation to social media and the postdigital condition, is an issue that I have been researching extensively for the last decade (Hurley, 2019; 2020; 2021; 2022). As beautiful and spectacular as Socotra is, while carrying out my research for only a brief period, I found it a culture shock and tough experience, for several reasons. The primary tensions were not the lack of modern amenities, including reliable access to electricity and water, or because I wasn’t used to travelling as a single woman in the Middle East. But, rather, what unsettled me was the rapid wearing-away of my sense of agency in just a few days. This led to a decline in my self-confidence which should not have surprised me, considering the wealth of feminist literature illustrating the toll on women and girls’ self-esteem from gender discrimination (Cin, 2017). Since the 1990s at least, with the emergence of new social movements emphasising the diversity and complex identities and subjectivities of the postmodern era, feminist philosophers (Fraser, 2013; Nassbaum 2000; Young, 1990; Cin, 2017) have developed different approaches to reveal the structural, cultural and political inequalities arising from difference and misrecognition of women and suppressed groups. Writing as a feminist postdigital scholar, I am also concerned with women’s access to technology as well as the impact of gender bias tacitly encoded within algorithmic living. However, being in Socotra reminds me of the many gender freedoms I take for granted beyond the technological realm. Despite being a feminist researcher, while being in Socotra I reflect how I have overlooked these issues.

With these challenges in mind, I recorded autoethnographic field notes, from my room in the University of Socotra Archipelago, in Habido, Socotra. I chose this methodology since I appreciate that all research encompasses a degree of bias and stems from the world view, gender, social class and ethnicity of the researcher. Unlike the methodological prescriptivism of certain quantitative and qualitative approaches, feminist postdigital research develops within a post-qualitative vein that enables a critical “thinking-with” to adjust and align with the contextual issues but also reorientate and disrupt normative paradigms constituting how we might conceive the world (Lather, 2016; St. Pierre, 2019). Feminist postdigital research is deeply concerned with author positionality and self-reflexivity (Hurley, 2020; Hurley & Al-Ali, 2021).

Autoethnography facilitates a degree of self-reflexivity while encompassing tenants of postdigital experience including, social space, access to technology and WIFI and the location of gendered and racialised subjects (Hurley & Al-Ali, 2021; 2022; Jandric et al, 2018). What follows in the next section are autoethnographic vignettes from my field notes, informed by feminist postdigitial theorising of the issues of women’s gender justice in the twenty-first century.

Notes from Socotra

#Ramadan 2022: Fasting month

It is the second day of the holy month of Ramadan (fasting month for Muslims). The Muslim world and all Hadibo’s inhabitants are resting. Shops are shut and their shutters are down. Stray goats, grazing on rubbish, are the chief occupiers of the road. Armed guards at the numerous checkpoints, shield their eyes from the heat. The day is marked by the call to prayer and verses of the Quran. I sit on the third floor of the university in my room, which I always keep locked. The windows are blocked with sticky plastic sheets, so no one can see in. I can barely see out. Except through a few small cracks, where the plastic wrap on the windows has worn away. Through the peepholes, I have a panorama of the mountains and sea in the distance. More immediately are roof tops, stacked with makeshift shelters, draped in old material, wooden, plastic scraps, car tires and droopy cables. There is a random 1960s style office chair, rotting, but promising the best vantage point of the vista. Down below are piles of rubble and rubbish. A rusted-out car nestles within tides of plastic bottles, plastic bags and goat faeces. There is a metal grate on my window so no one can break in (Figure I):

Figure I: Room with a view

My small room becomes my whole world when I am inside. I feel safe and comfortable, until the electricity stops. The water and WIFI are intermittent. I learn to neither take them for granted nor to rely on them too much. Since it is Ramadan, the shops will open in the evening. In any case, I don’t mind. I find it challenging enough to go outside alone in the daytime, let alone at night. I wear an abaya (long black coat) that my colleague in Dubai gave me and a chiffon black veil which I wrap around my neck and shoulders (despite the April heat). But my female face is still bare. Whereas all the Socotrian women cover theirs with a niqab (facial veil). I am surprised to find that I wish to cover own my face as well. The female Socotrian students at the university all where the niqab but tell me it is suffocating at times. But shielding from antagonism is pragmatic. In Socotra, a women’s mouth, eyes, cheeks and nose, if on display, seem to be a call for strangers to approach or stare and attract distain.

When I eventually muster the courage to go buy water from the shop across the road, the shopkeeper stops me from entering. He questions me in Arabic. I wish him and his three friends, dressed in misheda (head scarves) and mawwaz (sarongs) who are sitting on boxes of food,

“Alsala ealaykum” (peace be upon you) and “Ramadan Kareem” (best wishes for the fasting month). They ask: “Muslimah?” I shake my head and say: “La (no). Sorry, sorry.” I tell the shopkeeper that I just want water. “Water. You have water. I want talatha (three).” They stare at me coldly. I feel embarrassed by my lack of Arabic and look down in ignorance. I point at the freezer and walk past him, uninvited. He makes sure to step ahead of me and opens the freezer first. He points at plastic tubs, but I have no idea what is inside them. I move behind him again and hesitantly open the next freezer, which has plastic bottles of boiled water. I take three myself and go to the counter and point to his calculator. The prices vary widely for tourists here. On my first day I was charged US$10 for some bread. Then the next day, at another place, only US$1. He taps in 900 and I hand him 1000 Yemeni riyals ($1). As change he gives me a Softi Softi bar, which is date roll. I am very grateful and tell them, “shukran shukran” (thank you, thank you) and “mae esallama” (goodbye). They laugh at me as I walk away.

I go straight back to the apartment, rather than venturing further for food for dinner as planned. Women do not enter the restaurants here. The Softi Softi will have to suffice for now. I relish it and eat it quickly, relived to be back in my quarters and away from the street. After a few hours the tank of water for the apartment has refilled and it feels so wonderful to have a shower. The water is cold. I still have some liquid soap that I brought from Dubai. It feels luxurious, decadent and modern. But I suddenly feel worried that someone can see into the shower room even though the window is blacked out. I look at my own body with an unfamiliar sense of shame and wrap it away in a towel.

In the morning I wake-up happy that it is my penultimate day before returning to Dubai and my family. I miss my children. I wish my sons and daughter were here with me so we could enjoy the natural beauty and treasures of Socotra together. There is no WIFI however and I cannot contact them. I have still not received my plane ticket on WhatsApp from the Khalifa Foundation in Abu Dhabi. It is difficult to access social media since the internet speed is so slow. Flights from Socotra go only once a week, assuming that the weather is calm. I realise how deeply naïve my lecture to the Socotrian women students — about how they could all become social media entrepreneurs — was wildly optimistic and off point in view of the almost non-existent WIFI.

This is not the UAE or even the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both of which have dramatically opened in the last few years for women wishing to pursue careers outside of the home.

But I am in good spirits. There is electricity, aircon and water — all at once — so I really cannot complain. I have very little of the food left that I brought with me from Dubai. And, of course, all the restaurants are closed. I spend a good half-an-hour patiently stabbing at tin can of Egyptian foul (beans) with a blunt pair of scissors. There is a small electric hot ring in the kitchen but no tin opener. I manage to smash a small hole into the top of the tin and peel back jagged bits of metal to make an opening. I scoop out mushy beans, one by one. When I have emptied them into the pan, I let them heat before pouring them into a bowl. It is wonderful to eat hot food and well worth the wait.

Yesterday, I travelled with a driver to Qulansia, which is the second biggest city on the island. The island is largely unpopulated and consists of ancient looking small stone villages, each with its own recently built mosque. South Yemeni flags mark out the territorial zones of this part of the island, lying to the left of Hadibu. They mark Socotra’s allegiance to South Yemen at a time when it is gripped in conflict with the Houthis in a war that has been raging for seven years. The coast road twists around the borders of the aqua blue sea and guided by large birds of prey swooping above. Qulensya like other parts of Socotra, is also marked by scars of older wars, British occupation and the trail of tanks which they left behind. I send my friend in London a photo of Qulensya beach on WhatsApp (Figure II). She marvels at the deserted spot, pristine white sand mountains, ancient caves, deep red rocks and sparkling water.

Figure II: Qulensya

My friend says it looks like the Maldives. I tell her that it is most definitely not. Nor does Socotra have any semblance of being a resort destination. But the number of tourists visiting the island is increasing year by year, especially now Covid-19 is easing. It is a rugged form of tourism and not for the faint hearted. Groups of tourists fly in and out on the weekly planes to marvel at the lack of infrastructure, rare flora and fauna. One woman I meet from Australia tells me that her group want to start a fund to protect the rare dracaena cinnabari “dragon blood trees” for which Socotra is famous (Figure III):

Figure III: Dragon blood trees

The tourists are well intentioned. They sleep outside in tents and are led by the tour guides from one staging post to another. Treks into the mountains, caves and ravines are spectacular but physically demanding. In Qulensya, rumour has it that an old man lives in a cave and will cook fish for you if you pay $10 dollars. The average Yemini survives on $2–3 a day. I saw the man of the cave, on YouTube, in a video made by a tourist who said she stumbled upon him by chance (Grace on Tour, 2022). The driver — Ahmed and I, also met him in person while taking shade in a beach hut and resting on mat. He tells Ahmed he is very tired from Ramadan just beginning and gets in his car to drive back to his house in the village.

The peninsula is an object of fascination for western tourists eager to experience unfamiliar destinations. Tourism brochures, websites, the western press and tourists via social media fetishize Socotra as a fascinating, exotic and primitive location. For instance, Socotra has been described in the British broadsheet newspaper The Observer, as “the land that time forgot” and “time-capsule collection of plants and wildlife which are extinct elsewhere on the planet” (Carter, 2006). Carter suggests that many of the island’s inhabitant only speak “Socotri” a language unknown to the rest of the world with its roots in Sabea, an ancient city state on the southern Arabian mainland. He says that the Socotrian language still “has no words for things that are not found on the island, so to describe a dog or an aeroplane, Socotrans have to borrow from Arabic.”

Conversely, Socotran linguistic scholar Saeed Salim (2021), who recently completed his Masters in Socotrian language at Aden University, Yemen, suggests that impressions of the island in western media and scholarship are often based on antiquated studies from previous centuries. Salim (2021, p.47) says that they describe “the islands and people as they were thousands of years ago without taking note of events and changes, which passed more recently.” Consequently, the majority of young Socotrians speak Arabic and some English. Moreover, the Socotrian language has a complex grammar and syntax which qualify it as a sophisticated register beyond linguistic deficit. Socotrian also has lexical items which cannot easily be translated. Salim (2021) explains that numerous misrepresentations of Socotrian culture have been fabricated by people who have limited knowledge of the island since they do not speak its language or understand its cultural practices.

Antiquated depictions of Socotra, in tourist websites, western media and international development research, follow earlier iterations of Orientalism. The early postcolonial theories of Franz Fanon’s (1968)‘Wretched of the Earth’ and Edward Said’s (1998) ‘Orientalism’ both refer to the imagined geography of the Orient as exotic, pathological and feminine in order to locate it “schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, managers and actors are for Europe, and only for Europe” (Said, 1977: 71–72). Gulf-studies scholars, Kanna, Le Renard and Vora (2020) argue that the focus on exceptional people, places and events in the Middle East is a further proliferation of Orientalism. To go beyond Orientalism involves “de-exceptionalizing” while not flattening the complexity of the everyday” (Kanna et al., 2020: 11).

On my journey back from Quilensia to Hadibo, I am delighted when the driver asks me to take over the wheel. Laying-off the khat (a mild plant stimulant) for Ramadan, he wants to sleep in the back of the truck and it’s a single straight road home. Driving gives me a whole new perspective of the island. I keep one hand on the wheel and rest my elbow on the open window. I take in the beautiful pink blossoms of the rare bottle trees, natural scenery and wave at children who are shocked but seem happy to see the novel sight of a foreign woman driving a car. I do not see any other women driving on the island although I am told some can. But my friend from Aden tells me that women are not allowed to ride motorbikes, ever, since it is harem (forbidden) for them to open their legs to sit on the seat and put their feet on the pedals. On my drive, I see women who are washing their family’s clothes in the river. Some others, covered from head to toe in their burqas, are collecting water from the well (Figure IV):

Figure IV: Socotrian women at a water well

A number of Socotrians, both male and female, have mobile phones with video and cameras. But one of the most striking effects of tourism in Socotra, however, is the widening of a gap in life experiences between young adult men and women, especially in the rural areas. Socotrian women encounter foreign tourists or development workers in the marketplace or even in their villages, but only a handful of women are employed by local Non‑Governmental Organization (NGOs) or international projects work with non‑Yemenis (Peutz, 2013). More often, Socotran men work with tourists, while Socotran women are behind the scenes. For example, in the protected areas like Homil, rural women make souvenirs to sell to visiting tourists; however, the children run over to the car park or campground, preventing any direct contact between the tourists and their mothers. Men, on the other hand, working as guides, drivers, cooks, and translators, spend weeks if not months every year in foreign company. They learn to speak English, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and Czech. Several have had European “girlfriends” (Peutz, 2013) Their lifeworld is broadening but the lives of their sisters, daughters, and even wives remain cocooned.

Although, I only experienced the deeply gendered divide of Socotran life for a week, I found it unsettling. I realise how quickly misogyny can become internalised. It gets under my skin for a while. But every Yemeni and Socotran woman I meet is fighting it on their own terms. For some this battle is pragmatic and the daily needs of their families must be prioritised. For others, education is a key tool for emancipation and a means by which to carve out a space for women in the public sphere, develop voice and vocabulary to speak out against gender inequalities which hurt the whole community.

Women in Yemen and Socotra are acutely aware of the need to contextualize women’s education, gender justice, women’s right to drive, access to health care, technology, public space and social media. They do not necessarily need NGOs to tell them so. Conversely, investments in women’s handicraft skills, to make souvenirs to sell to tourists, gravely underestimate Yemeni women’s capabilities to tackle educational, economic, social and environmental projects at scale.

What they do require is substantial funding in women’s education, health and female midwives, as well as agency to develop infrastructure. But even when or if the dust from the conflict of war in Yemen settles while misogyny endures, in Socotra and elsewhere, then the daily lives of women and girls continue at the nexus of violence, exploitation and suffering. But the Yemeni professors, Socotrian women students, and the male ones agreeing to study alongside them, are a force for hope on the shifting sands of the struggle for gender justice.

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